Northeastern University College of Science Annual Report 2023-2024
THE GOOD POWER OF COLLABORATION
The Northeastern University College of Science embraces the Good Power of Science to forge excellence in research and education, with key contributions to our Northeastern global university. We will innovate in high-impact, cross-disciplinary, fundamental, and translational research toward solving crucial global challenges for a healthy, equitable, and sustainable future. We will implement empowering Science education at every level, for everyone, everywhere. Through creative, research-linked, hands-in learning, College of Science students will emerge as confident, entrepreneurial, ethical problem-solvers who love to learn, with flexible skills for a vast set of careers. Essential for promoting excellence in all spheres, we will expand our diverse, inclusive, collaborative community, where each person is valued and belongs.
College of Science Strategic Plan Threads
We envision the exciting, important next phase of the College of Science as a weave of six threads connected across the College, other Northeastern Colleges, and our global university.
• Build a Diverse College Where Everyone Belongs
• Empower Education Across Learning Communities
• Shift the PhD Paradigm
• Connect Solutions to Crucial Research Challenges
• Promote a Successful Faculty
• Construct a Framework for Growth
I’m thrilled to extend you a sincere and huge welcome as you explore our 2024 Annual Report: The Good Power of Collaboration.
Collaboration is the rule in science, not the exception. Ants work together to move a piece of leaf, bacteria work together to form biofilms that can be useful or a problem, single cells stick together to build every part of your body. Your brain includes 1,000 trillion connections between neurons (nerve cells) that collaborate and somehow allow you to think. Myriad life forms and non-living entities—water, rocks, soil, air—collaborate to build ecosystems. Fundamental particles collaborate to build atoms, which in turn collaborate to make molecules. Molecules love to collaborate through chemical reactions. The elusive qubits of quantum systems show deep collaboration called “entanglement.” And numbers collaborate with one another and with functions to build the great language of mathematics.
At Northeastern University and in the College of Science, we embrace collaboration. Within and across departments, across colleges, across our global university, we promote education and research that’s collaborative.
In several sessions at the start of the new academic year, I had the pleasure of saying a personal hello to new students. My message was consistent: choosing training in science is an outstanding decision, opening a vast set of future careers. Collaboration is a key aspect of every Northeastern University College of Science student’s education. Collaboration is truly useful, in combined majors, in research projects, in co-op positions, in student groups, and many other aspects of a student’s trajectory. And collaboration helps build inclusiveness and community, so that each student understands they are forever a Science Husky and belong in the Northeastern University College of Science.
Most of the exceptional “anything is possible” research in the College of Science is collaborative, much of it cross-disciplinary. Our researchers connect across fields, departments, colleges, and institutions, bringing together different methods, techniques, and understanding of a research challenge. Collaboration is empowering and wonderful—making connections with colleagues you did not know, and research that breaks through frontiers of discovery or application.
All of our education and research is part of the Good Power of Science, the unique College of Science framework, which means that our research aims to benefit society, will be conducted in an ethical, responsible and honest manner, and that every College of Science student will be educated in responsible, ethical principles. In our excellent Strategic Plan: CONNECTIONS to the Future, collaborations are embedded in College of Science culture and in everything we do.
Congratulations to everyone connected to the Northeastern University College of Science, and for collaborations that promote the Good Power of Science!
Warm regards,
Hazel Sive, PhD Dean, College of Science Northeastern University she/her
COLLEGE OF SCIENCE
Highlights
The College of Science Equity Action Fund supported important initiatives led by the Indian Cultural Association and Science is a Drag! and programs including REALTIME Summer Research Program, Belonging in Media: Opportunities in Digital Academic Landscapes (BIMODAL) workshops, and Psychology DEI Seminars—all promoting belonging and increasing access to science!
The COS Peer Advising Program was launched to provide employment and leadership opportunities for COS students, as well as to provide support to the greater COS student body navigating key academic experiences.
50% of the incoming COS PhD cohort participated in the successful Connected Science Community Summer Skills Session—an innovative and empowering program focused on building intensive skills and a supportive community.
We had milestone moments of research impact and innovation! The Barnett Institute for Chemical and Biological Analysis celebrated its 50th anniversary looking ahead to the future of scientific advancement through machine-assisted interpretation of biomolecular experiments. And the Ocean Genome Legacy Center marked 20 years of collaborative efforts that are advancing research to protect marine ecosystems and improve the human conditions.
The new Global Experience Office and Networking Advising cross-departmental team provides guidance and support to COS students across the global university, in programs like N.U.in and Global Scholars.
Undergraduate students were celebrated for their entrepreneurial endeavors at the first COS Entrepreneurship Recognition Dinner with keynote speaker Oran Muduroglu, entrepreneur, healthcare technology innovator, and parent of a Northeastern student.
We were thrilled to expand Bridge to Calculus as part of the Bridge to Science program to include courses in physics, chemistry, and biology, empowering high-school students with skills to think analytically, problem solve, and build confidence.
We welcomed graduate students to new MS programs in Cell and Gene Therapies, Nanomedicine, and Climate Science and Engineering (joint with College of Engineering).
Thanks to the support of our generous donors, we surpassed our development goal and raised $17 million to support our outstanding students and faculty while building the Good Power of Science.
Eleven COS Faculty Win TIER 1 Awards
This year, 25 multidisciplinary teams were chosen for highly competitive Tier 1 Awards, with 11 of these teams involving faculty from the College of Science—the most of any university unit.
TIER 1 Seed Grant/Proof of Concept Program awards are supported by the colleges, institutes, global campuses, and the Senior Vice Provost for Research. This program makes grants of up to $50,000 to support and encourage individual faculty members to form multidisciplinary teams to develop new and innovative research directions.
We’re immensely proud of the dedication of our faculty, staff, and students to collaborative, cross-disciplinary research efforts. Congratulations to Diego Alzate-Sanchez (Chemistry), Xuwen Zhu (Mathematics), Emeka Okeke (Biology), Lace Padilla (Computer Science, Psychology), Cristina Schultz (Marine and Environmental Sciences, Civil and Environmental Engineering), James Dennedy-Frank (Marine and Environmental Sciences), Damilola Daramola (Chemical Engineering, Chemistry), Dakota Murray (Physics, Network Science Institute), Needa Brown (Physics), Briana Taylor (Psychology, Roux Institute), Alexandra Rodman (Psychology), and Sara Constantino (Psychology).
New Research Consortia
The College of Science pioneered new Research Consortia— groupings of Northeastern faculty with overlapping research interests—to form collaborative bridges between departments and across colleges. The collaborative nature of the Consortia assists with faculty, postdoctoral, and student recruitment, disseminates and organizes targeted funding opportunities, and has the potential to develop into formal Centers and Institutes. Research Consortia include Healthy Aging, Mechanobiology, Mental Health, and Quantum.
We have built a vibrant interdisciplinary ecosystem, including informal research consortia that connect researchers across the network, and three new cross-college centers: The Brain Game Center for Mental Fitness and Well-Being, Center of Microwave & Magnetic Materials and Integrated Circuits, and the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics.
Erin Cram, PhD Associate Dean for Research
Mental Health Research Flash Talks
In the spring, the College of Science partnered with Bouvé College of Health Sciences and the University College Dublin (UCD) to host a Transatlantic networking event focused on mental health research. Twenty researchers from UCD and Northeastern University showcased their diverse expertise and ongoing research efforts with the goal of stimulating dialogue, exchanging ideas, and forging partnerships that can address the multifaceted challenges surrounding mental health globally. Thank you to our participating COS psychology faculty: Aaron Daniels, Aaron Seitz, Analia Albuja, and Alexandra Rodman.
FACULTY AFFAIRS
Faculty Hired To Expand Research in Plant Science
Two faculty members were hired for the Institute of PlantHuman Interface, led by Jing-Ke Weng, PhD, and fosters collaboration among different faculty working on different aspects of plant science.
Joint Appointments of New Tenure-Track Faculty
More than half of new COS tenure-track faculty have joint appointments, facilitating fruitful collaboration between departments and colleges.
• Two new faculty hires were given joint appointments between different departments
• Four new faculty have joint appointments with COS and another college
The college continues to hire outstanding early-career faculty through its innovative INVEST program, with two new INVEST hires last year and an ongoing search for two more. This program provides an accelerated pathway to tenure-track faculty appointments across demographics of society.
Darien Wood, PhD Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs
EQUITY
A Diverse College Where Everyone Belongs!
The College of Science hosted its inaugural Week of Service in collaboration with the D’Amore-McKim School of Business and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. This special program united faculty, staff, and students through a variety of community events and donation drives that supported local organizations such as Daily Table, Bagly, Rosie’s Place, and the Greater Boston Food Bank.
Our equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice efforts made a greater impact, thanks to the outstanding collaboration across the university community! Our college and campus partners supported COS in 37 programs and initiatives, enabling us to include and amplify more voices and perspectives, reach more participants, and increase the spirit of community.
The College of Science’s unwavering commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice thrives on the power of collaboration. Together, we build a community where everyone belongs, feels welcomed, and is supported. Through resources like the Equity Action Fund, EDIJ programming, and scholarships, we proudly support your work in shaping an impactful and inclusive college.
Tara Duffy, PhD Associate Dean
for Equity
Empowering Undergraduate Research
A new program to offer early research opportunities was piloted in the fall 2023 semester. A diverse group of 18 COS freshmen were selected as COS Research Scholars and matched with faculty. And a new Undergraduate Research Club was co-founded by one of our undergraduate students, Dillon Nishigaya (biology ’25).
Through the support of the Dean’s Fund, a new award was launched—Dean’s College of Science Undergraduate Research Fellowship—which matched 14 students to COS faculty and postdocs to gain valuable, paid research experience during Summer I and/or II.
Investing in Entrepreneurial Spirit and Innovation
The Science Connects to Innovation program empowers undergraduate science students to engage with Northeastern’s venture-creation network, offering support for recognizing and pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities.
The Entrepreneurship Speaker Series ran in the fall and spring semesters and was highly rated by participants. Speakers featuring students, alumni, and faculty involved in startups, including Rachel Domb ’24, founder of Rooted Living, Noah Wilson-Rich ’05, founder of Urban Bee Lab and CEO of The Best Bees Company, Sanjeev Mukerjee, distinguished professor of chemistry and chemical biology, Leila Deravi, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology, and Marine Nimblette ’24, co-founder of Businesses United in Diversity. These efforts were spearheaded by a co-op student working in the COS Office of the Dean and funded by a generous alumni donation.
The Science Connects to Innovation Scholarship was launched in fall 2023. It is a $5,000, one-time award to COS undergraduate students to promote entrepreneurship. In its inaugural year, 6 students applied, and it was awarded to Lyric Westlund, behavioral neuroscience ’25.
The first annual Entrepreneurship Workshop, held at the Warren Conference Center, aimed to ignite a passion for entrepreneurship in College of Science students and to enhance leadership skills that are useful in all career paths. The workshop featured teambuilding activities and an Entrepreneurship Bootcamp facilitated by Professor Stephen Golden, D’Amore-McKim School of Business. The students were split into groups and asked to brainstorm ideas for wearable medical devices, one of which was a hearing aid that uses stem cells to repair a person’s hearing ability.
COS continues to build upon its history of successful cross-disciplinary MS programs, which now include Biotechnology, Bioinformatics, Cell and Gene Therapies, Environmental Science and Policy, Nanomedicine, Statistics, Applied Math, and Complex Network Analysis. Together, these programs share curricula from Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Marine Science, and Math and are in collaboration with six other Northeastern colleges, preparing our students to excel in a rapidly evolving world.
Jeffrey Agar, PhD
Associate Dean for MS Education and Lifelong Learning
Forging Excellence in MS Education Across the Global Network
The College of Science continues to make strides in providing all students with the skills and expertise needed to meet the demands of both science and industry and to contribute meaningfully to scientific progress and innovation.
We proudly expanded our professional MS programs in high-demand fields where students are eager to advance their careers—Cell and Gene Therapies, Nanomedicine, and Nanomedicine, Climate Science, and Engineering (a joint program with the College of Engineering)—and successfully launched the MS Bioinformatics in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
COS was instrumental in the development of new university Interdisciplinary Programs—MS Statistics—Connect, MS Statistics, and MS Complex Network Analysis—along with the university’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences and Khoury College of Computer Science.
The College of Science closely partnered with the university’s Enrollment Management team to drive global MS enrollment through international marketing, expos in India, China, and Ghana, and domestic outreach. Our alliances with universities opened pathways for students, accelerating their MS education and transforming futures through shared innovation and opportunity.
Building PhD Skills, Community, and Confidence
Incoming PhD students participated in the Connected Science Community PhD Summer Skills Session, an innovative and empowering program held a month before the start of the fall semester to focus on building intensive skills and a supportive community. The program included workshops centered on communication, teaching, research ethics, and entrepreneurship and a research proposal writing project with faculty support in their disciplines.
This is a successful coordinated collaboration between the Office of the Dean, department chairs, directors of graduate studies and graduate staff in the departments, and feedback from the students who participated in the previous cohort.
The First Combined PhD Launches
The Cross-Disciplinary Science PhD umbrella was designed in collaboration by the Office of the Dean, department chairs and directors of graduate studies to encompass several Combined PhD programs in emerging cross-disciplinary fields and areas of need across departments. Co-owned by two or more departments, each Combined PhD will attract talented students working across fields and support faculty whose research are inherently cross-disciplinary, while in line with Northeastern University’s Academic Plan. The first Combined PhD in Human Behavior and Sustainability Sciences was pioneered jointly between Marine and Environmental Sciences and Psychology, and is welcoming its first cohort this fall. This monumental collaborative accomplishment will allow the College of Science to stay at the cutting edge of emerging fields, quickly responding to evolving faculty needs and interests of PhD student applicants.
This monumental collaborative accomplishment will allow the College of Science to stay at the cutting edge of emerging fields, quickly responding to evolving faculty needs and interests of PhD student applicants.
Carla Mattos, PhD Associate Dean for PhD Programs and Graduate Affairs
The Department of Biology fosters a collaborative atmosphere where teaching and research meet. One of the noteworthy initiatives is our EDIJ Committee-led teaching circles, where faculty members come together to learn and discuss important and timely topics in education, such as the role of AI in education, inclusive teaching practices, and new approaches to pedagogy. These endeavors strengthen our collaborative community and support our mission of shaping the future of biology education and research.
James Monaghan, PhD Chair, Department of Biology
By the Numbers
Selected Awards + Recognition
National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER:
Understanding How The Hierarchical Organization of Growth Plate Stem Cells Controls Skeletal Growth |
Andreia Ionescu
College of Science Excellence in EDIJ Award | Diviya Ray
Key Stories
A new antibiotic, clovibactin, discovered by Northeastern Distinguished Professor Kim Lewis, could be a significant new weapon in the growing fight against drug-resistant bacterial infections and superbugs. Isolated from a previously uncultured bacterium found in the sandy soil of North Carolina, using a method discovered by Professor Slava Epstein, clovibactin blocks the formation of bacterial cell walls by an unusual mechanism. It works like a glove or cage to wrap around and bind three different phosphate-containing molecules needed to build the wall.
Student Highlights
Ethan Wong ’24
Wong will use the power of “big data,” biology, and neuroscience to help develop better early intervention models for those suffering with cognitive impairments when he starts his studies at Churchill College at Cambridge University in fall 2024. “If I can do research that gives people one or two extra years to be a father, a mother, or a grandparent, I think that’s super worth fighting for,” he says.
Nicole Cavanaugh
Cavanaugh, a biotechnology and commercialization specialist, was awarded the Dean’s Graduate Student Excellence in Connecting Award for her exceptional ability to foster connections across the university community. This includes her work with the Center for Research Innovation and the COS Graduate Student Council and the Biology Graduate Student Association (GSA). Additionally, she has mentored undergraduate students in environmental microbiology research projects in Professor Yunrong Chai’s lab, who have been awarded a total of 12 PEAK Awards.
Student Awards
Huntington 100 | Julia Colbert, Anushka Deshmukh, Natalie Desilets, Janis Dong, Ella Einstein, Amal Elmady, Isabella Feng, Anika Fernandes, Lilyan Garrett, Isabel Jones, Caitlin Lourenco, Yueting Lu, Dillon Nishigaya, Chikamadu Okafor, Remie Paguio, Ashley Varghese, Rowan Waring, Ethan Wong
Churchill Scholarship | Ethan Wong
Garnet Award | Diana Turrieta
Compass Award | Ashley Katherine Brown
Fulbright S/R to Australia, “Facilitators and Barriers to Successful School-Based HPV Vaccination” | Natalie McGowan
Dean’s Graduate Student Excellence Awards | Nicole Cavanaugh, Excellence in Connecting; Yiwei Kong, Excellence in Research
Key Stories
Professor Jeff Agar has made a significant breakthrough in the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that could potentially halt the disease in up to half of U.S. cases. His research targets a mutation (A4V) in the copper-zinc superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) protein. This mutation causes the protein to break into two toxic monomers, which then bind together to form harmful clusters that accumulate in cells, leading to cell damage and death as the disease progresses. The innovative treatment developed by Agar’s lab uses a small molecule linker, S-XL6, to prevent the SOD1 protein from splitting, effectively halting the damaging process. Agar is collaborating with Professor Roman Manetsch’s lab to further refine this promising approach.
Professor Sijia Dong received a prestigious grant award from the U.S. Department of Energy to explore algorithms for simulations on quantum computers that may further the pursuit of renewable energy sources.
Professor Ke Zhang is developing an innovative drug delivery method aimed at enhancing gene regulation, with the potential to revolutionize current approaches. His strategy focuses on oligonucleotides—short, powerful DNA-like molecules. Combined with a carrier known as bottlebrush polymer, this method could hold the key to targeting and treating life-threatening genetic diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and cancer.
Selected Awards + Recognition
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow | Eugene Smotkin
Scialog—Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials (SM3) Fellow | Diego Alzate-Sanchez
Kabiller Rising Star Award in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine | Ke Zhang
Scialog—Automating Chemical Laboratories Fellow | Sijia Dong
Inter-American Photochemical Society Young Investigator Award | Steven Lopez
Northeastern University National Academy of Inventors Innovator of the Year Award | Meni Wanunu
National Institutes of Health R35 MIRA: Modeling the Mucosal Glycopeptide Mesh for Improved Disease Understanding and Mucin-Inspired Biomaterial Design | Srirupa Chakraborty
Student Highlights
Luke Bagdonas
Bagdonas, a recipient of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, is exploring the potential of salt marshes as a nature-based solution to climate change. His research is centered on metabolomics, an emerging field that examines small organic compounds, known as metabolites, and their biological pathways in living organisms. “By looking at all the metabolites present in some system— whether that be a water sample or a soil sample—you can get an idea of what the organisms in that environment are doing,” he says.
Bishwarup (Bish) Sarkar ’24
Sarkar gave the student address at the 2024 College of Science Graduate Celebration. Bish completed his MS in Biotechnology with a concentration in molecular biotechnology. During his studies, Sarkar worked as a research assistant in the Antimicrobial Discovery Center, led by Professor Kim Lewis and completed a co-op at Moderna, where he explored the field of process development and RNA sciences.
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships | Gillian McClennen, Fatemah Mukadum
Dean’s Graduate Student Excellence Awards | David Verill, Excellence in Teaching
Lux. Veritas. Virtus. | Caroline Millard
Robert M. Scarborough Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry | Alicia Wagner
By the Numbers
Our faculty proactively develop crossdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaborations, which helps foster the intellectual community. In areas as diverse as sustainability, medicinal chemistry, biomaterials, and chemical biology, faculty bring widely varying and complementary expertise together to develop unique perspectives on research and identify new avenues of discovery. These approaches can span scales from atoms to humans to ecosystems. The entrepreneurial endeavors of various faculty connect their research to realworld consumer-centered and environmentally responsible products.
Penny Beuning, PhD Chair, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Student Highlights
Kiran Bajaj and Nicole Mongillo
Bajaj (marine biology) and Mongillo (ecology and evolutionary biology) were awarded a PEAK Summit Award for their research on the “Characterization of Morphological Differences in Locally Adapted Juvenile Oysters” with Professor Katie Lotterhos.
Haley Benjamin
Benjamin completed a co-op with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she participated in scientific cruises to collect water samples, track North Atlantic right whales, and analyze the relationship between plankton abundance and whale sightings. She also counted Adélie penguins in an Antarctic colony using drone images to estimate the colony’s density, and analyzed acoustic data from hydrophones in the Arctic to identify passing marine mammals based on the sounds of their calls.
Awards
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hollings Scholar | Leila Curtis
NSF Graduate Research Fellowships | Meghan Ford, Josephine Slaathaug
Lux. Veritas. Virtus. | Indira Holdsworth
By the Numbers
UNDERGRADUATE ENROLLMENT (SERVED BY COS) 630
and Environmental Sciences and Marine and Environmental Sciences combined majors
Key Stories Selected Awards + Recognition
National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award: Sedimentary Signatures of Large Riverine Floods to Constrain Risk and Build Resiliency | Samuel Muñoz
Simons Foundation: Ecosystem on the Edge— How Coastal Marsh Plants And Microbes Thrive in an Oscillating Environment | Jennifer Bowen
NOAA: mCDR 2023—Developing a Coupled Benthic-Pelagic Biogeochemical Model to Evaluate the Effectiveness of mCDR Interventions | Cristina Schultz
NSF Collaborative Research/ORCC: Climate Change Responses in a Globally Invasive Insect—Quantifying the Roles of Local Adaptation, Seasonal Adaptation, and Phenotypic Plasticity | Katie Lotterhos
In 2021, Northeastern researchers estimated that 4 million to 10 million tons of plastic carbon enter the ocean annually. Now, led by Aron Stubbins, professor of marine and environmental sciences, civil and environmental engineering, and chemistry and chemical biology, the team has discovered that the degradation of plastics in sunlight produces hundreds of chemicals. These chemicals may affect the ocean’s carbon cycle and marine chemistry, with potential implications for human health.
Brian Helmuth, professor of marine and environmental sciences and John Coley, professor of psychology, along with doctoral candidates Nicole Betz and Joan Kim, published new research exploring how human exceptionalism shapes people’s understanding of environmental issues and, in turn, influences pro-environmental behavior. By examining how individuals perceive and make sense of nature, their findings could help experts design more effective interventions and find common ground with the public on environmental concerns.
The Coastal Sustainability Institute and the Marine Science Center partnered with the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute (GMGI) to enhance scientific understanding that supports coastal sustainability initiatives. This collaboration has provided numerous benefits, including lectures, seminars, a successful Northeastern co-op program at GMGI, and participation in the High School Marine Science Symposium— an annual event co-hosted at Northeastern to promote STEM pathways and inclusive outreach. All of these efforts aim to elevate the voices of junior scientists.
Our successes in the Department of Marine Environmental Sciences are evident in all dimensions of our collaborative community, including the research and academic pursuits of our undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and faculty, and the outstanding community engagement activities of our outreach program.
Geoffrey Trussell, PhD Chair, Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences
Key Stories
The award-winning Bridge to Calculus Summer Program, now a part of Bridge to Science, is a long-standing partnership with the Boston Public Schools targeting high-school students from underserved populations. This year, 120 students participated in an expanded program that included classes in calculus, physics, biology, chemistry, statistics, and more. Students were also able to apply for Bridge to Calculus internships through the Summer Youth Employment program and get paid to learn calculus!
The Math Department hosted the annual Maurice Auslander Distinguished Lectures and International Conference at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The conference brings together mathematicians from representation theory and related areas of combinatorics, invariant theory, commutative algebra, homological algebra, and mathematical physics. It is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Mid-Atlantic Topology Conference organized by Iva Halacheva, Ben Knudsen, and Jose Perea brought together regional researchers of all career stages and subdisciplines of topology with the opportunity to build community, discuss research, and gain exposure to new ideas. It was supported by the NSF and the College of Science and Department of Mathematics at Northeastern.
Selected Awards + Recognition
College of Science Excellence in Teaching Award | Valerio Toledano Laredo
NSF: Microlocal Analysis and Singularities | Xuwen Zhu
Valerio Toledano Laredo | Monodromy of the Casimir Connection of a Symmetrisable Kac–Moody Algebra. Inventiones Mathematicae
Shengnan Huang and Milen Yakimov | Root of Unity Quantum Cluster Algebras and Cayley-Hamilton Algebras. Transactions of the American Mathematical
Paul Hand | Compressive Phase Retrieval: Optimal Sample Complexity With Deep Generative Priors. Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics
Student Highlights
Anadil Rao
PhD student Rao worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Computational Physics and Methods Division studying the Stein Variational Gradient Descent (SVGD) sampling method, an algorithm used for computing probability that the NSF hopes to use in climate-change modeling. Rao looked at cases where SVGD did not behave as expected and researched ways to mitigate the issue. Rao found this opportunity through the NSF Mathematical Sciences Graduate Internship Program administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.
Twelve students participated in the 2023 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, the premier mathematical competition for undergraduates, which is considered extremely difficult, rarely yielding perfect scores. Collectively, the team scored 120 total points, tying the national median score of 10 points (out of a maximum score of 120), and placing Northeastern 54th nationally of 471 competing teams! In addition to team honors, Toby Busick-Warner placed in the top 250, Devin Brown placed in the top 600, and Sanat Shajan placed in the top 1000, out of a total of 3,857 students participating.
The past few years have been transformative for the math department! Through leveraging our strength in pure mathematics, we have raised our national and international profile by including new directions of applied mathematics research and building connections with other fields. We have hired outstanding faculty with highly cross-disciplinary profiles. In our collaborative research environment, the synergy of pure and applied mathematics is on full display: our faculty and students work on fundamental research and solve complex real-world problems.
Egon Schulte, PhD Chair, Department of Mathematics
Modern research projects often require people with different expertise, and the outcome from a team is often greater than the sum of all the individuals. For instance, in the Network Science Institute, collaborations with epidemiologists and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention led to a major multiinstitution grant on disease forecasting, and collaborations of network scientists with material scientists led to another major funded effort.
Mark Williams, PhD
Chair, Department of Physics
Student Highlights
Estelle Kokernot and Ryan Slezak
First-year students Kokernot (physics) and Slezak (mathematics/physics) were selected as COS Dean’s Undergraduate Research Scholars to work with mentor Professor Jonathan Blazek! Kokernot will research galaxy clustering and weak gravitational lensing, and Slezak will write code and study data from star systems.
Stephen Whitcomb
Whitcomb received a PEAK Experience Trail-Blazer Award for his project “Characterizing the Impact of Ions on Ribosomal Structural Dynamics.” Under Professor Paul Whitford’s guidance, he will study how ions transiently associate with the ribosome and control its dynamics during P/E hybrid formation, a key conformational change in protein synthesis.
Ben Cashen
Cashen is pursuing his PhD in experimental biophysics, investigating the dynamics of single-stranded nucleic acid (ssNA) binding proteins from T4 bacteriophage and the LINE-1 retrotransposon. His work has revealed a robust, generalizable mechanism for the rapid removal of protein from ssNA templates during DNA synthesis.
Huntington 100 | David Abrahamyan
Outstanding Graduate Student Award in Research | Ben Cashen Student Awards
By the Numbers
UNDERGRADUATE
Key Stories
The Gamma-Ray and AntiMatter Survey (GRAMS) team led by Professor Tsuguo Aramaki won a highly competitive $5.5 million NASA award to demonstrate a proofof-concept prototype for this ambitious mission, called “pGRAMS.” The GRAMS mission—a collaborative team of international scientists from Northeastern University, Columbia University, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center—aims to deliver unprecedented sensitivities to astrophysical observations with MeV gamma rays and indirect dark matter searches with antimatter using a cost-effective, large-scale LArTPC (Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber) detector.
Srinivas Sridhar, Distinguished Professor of Physics, and Peter Bex, department chair and professor of psychology, along with associate research scientist Craig Versek and data scientist Ali Banijamali, received a patent for goggles that scan your brain to detect neurological and vision function loss. The device, called NeuroVEP, combines a smartphone in a virtual reality headset equipped with a sensor that monitors the brain signals the user produces, and uses AI and machine-based learning to isolate the Visual Evoked Potentials for eye-brain diagnostics.
Selected Awards + Recognition
Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize (American Physical Society) | Albert-László Barabási
National Academy of Inventors Fellow | Srinivas Sridhar
AIMBE College of Fellows | Srinivas Sridhar
National Institutes of Health (NIH): Integrative Biophysical Modeling for Collective Tissue Mechanics | Max Bi
Simons Foundation: Simons Collaboration on Celestial Holography | Tomasz Taylor
NIH: Fractionated Photoimmunotherapy to Harness LowDose Immunostimulation in Ovarian Cancer | Bryan Spring
National Science Foundation: Mobility Data for Communities (MD4C)—Uncovering Segregation, Climate Resilience, and Economic Development from Cell-Phone Records | Esteban Moro Egido
NIH: Direct RNA Sequencing Using Electro-Optical Zero Mode Waveguides and Custom Click Fluorescent Nucleotides | Meni Wanunu
NIH: Elucidating the Mechanisms that Enable Translation in Bacterial and Eukaryotic Ribosomes | Paul Whitford
College of Science Excellence in Research Award | Michele Di Pierro
College of Science Excellence in Teaching Award | Toyoko Orimoto
Student Highlights
Matty Coleman
Coleman was key in convening a holistic wellness group with representatives of health and student groups on campus, along with members of the university’s administration, to coordinate the mental health needs of the students. The result was improved services through Find@Northeastern and the launch of a safe, online peer-to-peer mental health community that allows students to give and receive support for mental health challenges anonymously and easily.
Joan Jo Hyun Kim
Kim was awarded the Dean’s Graduate Student Excellence in Diversity Award for actively fostering an inclusive research community and supporting diversity in the sciences. She developed a line of environmental research focused on how stereotypes and perceptions of minoritized communities affect decisions about resource distribution for environmental interventions.
NSF Graduate Research Fellowships | Bianca Corjuc, Mitch Dobbs, Paul Savoca, Gates Schneider, Sabra Sisler
Dean’s Graduate Student Excellence Awards | Caitlyn Cody, Excellence in Research; Joan Jo Hyun Kim, Excellence in Diversity
Outstanding Graduate Student Award in Humanics | Nick Kathios
Outstanding Graduate Student Award in Teaching | Kelsie Lopez
Key Stories
Professors Aaron Seitz and Susanne Jaeggi received a $3.77 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate the effects of gamified versus non-gamified interventions on adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared to those without. There is a significant gap in research on cognitive training programs that are believed to help maintain or improve cognitive skills such as auditory and visual processing, working memory, sustained attention, decision-making, and executive functions.
Jaeggi, Seitz, and their collaborators from the University of Maribor in Slovenia, along with Domenico Tullo, a postdoctoral associate at Northeastern, aim to address this gap through their new study.
Professor Stephanie Noble’s research in precision neuroscience is focused on enhancing the work of other researchers. Through her work with functional MRI, she aims to improve measurement accuracy and precision, and address concerns about reproducibility in the field. To support this, she received a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to develop a “power calculator” specifically designed for neuroimaging studies.
The Department of Psychology thrives on collaboration, fostering an environment where faculty, students, and researchers work together seamlessly. This synergy drives innovative research, enriches learning experiences, and cultivates a supportive community. By embracing diverse perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches, the department not only advances the field of psychology but also prepares students to make meaningful contributions to society. At Northeastern, collaboration is the cornerstone of our success and growth.
Peter Bex, PhD Chair, Department of Psychology
Selected Awards + Recognition
SAGE Emerging Scholar Award | Analia Albuja
2024 Rudolf Carnap Lectures at Ruhr-Universität Bochum | Lisa Feldman Barrett
Ruhr Award for Philosophy and the Mind Sciences | Lisa Feldman Barrett
Paul D. MacLean Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Research | Lisa Feldman Barrett
Kucharski Young Investigator Award | Laurel Gabard-Durnam
National Science Foundation (NSF): Addressing the Generalization Problem in Neural Models of Fear | Ajay Satpute
NSF: Time-locked Psychophysics—Speeded Responses to Visual Stimuli | Rhea Eskew
NIH: Mediators and Moderators of Perceptual Learning | Aaron Seitz
EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM
Hazel Sive, PhD
Dean
Jeffrey Agar, PhD
Associate Dean for MS Education and Lifelong Learning
Erin Cram, PhD
Associate Dean for Research
Tara Duffy, PhD
Associate Dean for Equity
Sam Inman, MBA
Associate Dean for Administration and Finance
Carla Mattos, PhD
Associate Dean for PhD Programs and Graduate Affairs
Sanjeev Mukerjee, PhD
Associate Dean for the Global University
Brent Nelson, PhD
Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Darien Wood, PhD
Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs
Penny Beuning, PhD
Chair, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Peter Bex, PhD
Chair, Department of Psychology
James Monaghan, PhD Chair, Department of Biology
Egon Schulte, PhD
Chair, Department of Mathematics
Geoffrey Trussell, PhD Chair, Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences
Mark Williams, PhD Chair, Department of Physics
CREDITS
Photography
Julio Chuy, Jacqueline Donnelly, Adam Glanzman, Matthew Modoono, Alyssa Stone, Carmen Valino, Ruby Wallau, Nikki Ziner for Northeastern University.
Captions + Credits
1. Ixodes scapularis (deer tick) midgut, stained for actin and DNA. Adam Slamin, Takacs Laboratory of Spirochete and Vector Biology 2. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of eye lens fiber cells at 300x magnification. Calf (Bos taurus) eye was fixed in glutaraldehyde and paraformaldehyde and coated with platinum. Michael Bergman ’23, BioMaterials Design Group 3. Simulation of a mathematical model trying to decipher the molecular mechanisms for how cells communicate in order to break symmetry and initiate movement. Shown are four simulated cells that
break symmetry to initiate rotational motion. Katherine Levandosky ‘24, Copos Lab 4. Nanostructured magnetic islands in a quantum thin film of potassium cobalt sulfide. John Ferrier, Laboratory of 2D Quantum Materials of Swastik Kar 5. Lowmagnification image of rat brain slice showing neurons important for cognition (in blue), enwrapped in a specialized matrix called perineuronal nets (in magenta), which affect neuron activity. Brenhouse Lab 6. A close-up of a volunteer’s eye for an Arts & Science project at the Subjectivity Lab, where Dr. Jorge Morales and his team study conscious awareness and perception. Subjectivity Lab.
Front Cover
Yiwei Kong conducts research in the Ionescu Lab on tissue regeneration after growth plate cartilage injuries. Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Collaboration is key to the education of every Northeastern University College of Science student—in combined majors, in research projects, in co-op positions, and in student groups. Most of the exceptional “anything-is-possible” research in the College of Science is collaborative, much of it cross-disciplinary. Collaboration is empowering and wonderful—creating new connections with colleagues and promoting research that breaks through frontiers of discovery and application.
Hazel Sive, PhD Dean, College of Science Northeastern University
